Calculating powers of integers

java math
Hidde picture Hidde · Nov 9, 2011 · Viewed 357.7k times · Source

Is there any other way in Java to calculate a power of an integer?

I use Math.pow(a, b) now, but it returns a double, and that is usually a lot of work, and looks less clean when you just want to use ints (a power will then also always result in an int).

Is there something as simple as a**b like in Python?

Answer

JB Nizet picture JB Nizet · Nov 9, 2011

Integers are only 32 bits. This means that its max value is 2^31 -1. As you see, for very small numbers, you quickly have a result which can't be represented by an integer anymore. That's why Math.pow uses double.

If you want arbitrary integer precision, use BigInteger.pow. But it's of course less efficient.

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